1. Field of the Disclosure
Aspects of the present invention generally relate to a technique for managing an image forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a management apparatus for acquiring and managing operational information of an image forming apparatus such as a printer or a copying machine has been known. It is known that the image forming apparatus is provided with a function for storing a print job of a user as a log, and a function for notifying the user of a power state. Further, due to an increased need for power saving, it is also known that the image forming apparatus is provided with a function for entering a power saving state (a sleep state) when the image forming apparatus is not used for a certain period of time.
In addition, the number of the image forming apparatuses that can be managed by a single management apparatus is also requested to be increased.
While the number of the image forming apparatuses that can be managed by a single management apparatus is requested to be increased, improvement in processing efficiency of the image forming apparatus is one of the important issues.
However, with the technique discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2008-171323, when information such as a counter or a job log is acquired from the image forming apparatus being in a sleep state, processing thereof needs to be held until the image forming apparatus shifts to a normal state from the sleep state, and thus it is problematic in that processing efficiency cannot be improved.